The superintendent of Portland Public Schools, Carole Smith, listens to testimony before the meeting was interrupted by protesters. A rally organized by the Portland Student Union and the Portland Teachers Solidarity Campaign attracted students, parents and other unions in support of teachers.
(Stephanie Yao Long/The Oregonian)

While union president Gwen Sullivan said she hoped the new proposal would provide a pathway for a deal, Smith has said that the move pulled both sides further apart.

The union’s new proposal, which asked district officials to commit to reducing class sizes, came amid continual progress toward a deal.

In an interview on Friday with The Oregonian, Smith said she had felt close to an agreement last week after a marathon mediation session on Monday that lasted into the morning.

“As we got into the wee hours of that morning, we believed we were really close, and we’ve been surprised now to get a couple of other significant additions to what PAT is looking for in order to get to a settlement,” Smith said. “So, are we disappointed? Completely disappointed.”

Smith, who took over the district in 2007, has been involved in one of the most protracted and contentious contract disputes Oregon’s largest district has faced in recent years. If teachers authorize a strike, it would be the first walkout in the district’s history.

District officials last week announced they had conceded on a major union priority, which involved keeping a contractual limitation on workload that the district had tried to eliminate. With the new proposal, union officials asked them to not only commit to the limits, but go further and invest in reducing class sizes by hiring more teachers.

Smith on Friday said she thought both teams had worked hard to get a good agreement with concessions on both sides.

"Part of what was hopeful to me a week ago was that it felt like we were at that spot, where everyone was letting go of some things they came in wanting," Smith said.

Portland Public Schools officials say they are not ready to move beyond the parameters both sides worked around last week in the marathon mediation session.

Union officials said such statements would push teachers to a walkout. In response, Smith said she has always been hopeful for an agreement.

“If we can get to this agreement, we will have a better contract that both parties own jointly, in a way that would be really healthy for the district, and the relationship between the district and the union,” she said.

Both sides have not yet scheduled additional talks.

You can read the rest of Smith’s interview below:

How is the district’s bargaining team feeling after the last proposal?

Disappointed that we don’t have an agreement. As you know, after our 21-hour session, we believed we were really close to an agreement, as did the union. The union came out and communicated pretty directly that we believed we were close.

At that point, the district had responded to what the union identified as their two most important issues, one of which was concrete steps to relieve workload next year. We’ve actually been very creative and done a lot of work together on what that would look like.

And then secondly, maintaining health care benefits for their members -- and we were able to make progress on that one, too, in order to be able to say that we would hold to a current level of health care benefits. That evening, we also put a salary proposal on the table that increased two percent each year of the three-year deal. That would mean a range for teachers between 7 percent and 17 percent increases over the life of the contract, and that was all done within what we were calling “frameworks for settlement.”

As we got into the wee hours of that morning, we believed we were really close, and we’ve been surprised now to get a couple of other significant additions to what PAT is looking for in order to get to a settlement. So, are we disappointed? Completely disappointed.

The teachers union says the district can go further and have enough money to do so. What’s your reaction to that?

We spent two hours with PAT members walking them through the budget forecasting for next year and budget adjustments and amendments for this year to be very transparent about what our financial situation is (before the last mediation session). We were really working to give them context to try and help shape a realistic proposal, because one of the features had to be (that the contract proposal) had to be within existing resources. The other really important piece of this is -- and what has been a tension all the way through -- is deciding what actually belongs in a labor agreement and what belongs in a budgeting process where you have other stakeholders involved.

As we are looking at our budgets for next year, we don’t then put all of that into a labor agreement with a single union. We have multiple employee groups and we have multiple stakeholders, who will all be informing that budget process. We were very transparent with PAT about the $7.8 million, which is Portland’s share of the grand bargain. It would end up being 88 (full-time equivalent positions), which would translate into a 4.6 percent impact on student load next year, which gave them something very concrete to talk about in terms of workload relief for next year.

When we’re actually in the budgeting process, it’s the intent that there will be more than that given to teachers in schools -- but that wouldn’t be tied into the labor agreement. We were really trying to say that the designated funds from the legislative funds from the grand bargain are the things that we could commit in this context, and the rest of the discussion will happen in the budgeting process.

Even though the legislature said the dollars from the grand bargain either goes to school based staffing or instructional time, we said 100 percent would go to PAT members. In addition we’re looking to add two instructional days that would increase salaries by another one percent.

Do you feel like your proposal does address workload relief?

It does, in a concrete way. What we have in our proposal is a joint work group that is really able to address individual situations where a teacher might want to bring forward concerns about their workload. It’s a joint committee of PAT members and district officials, who would be able to make recommendations to the Chief Academic Officer that would be for relief in individual situations.

Secondly, that committee would be identifying things that are systemic. They can make budget recommendations in the coming year, or advocacy issues, and really jointly determine what are the things that impact workload most significantly for our district. While that committee is doing its work, we also agreed to put in place the current language that governs workload in our contract, which we had previously had been proposing to eliminate.

How long will you think this will go on?

That’s hard to predict. Truly, I was hoping we were close to an agreement and I had been feeling really good about the work at the table, the creativity, the joint coming up with solutions that didn’t exist prior to doing work at the table.

I was feeling really positive about how we were going to have a better contract. If we can get to this agreement, we will have a better contract that both parties own jointly, in a way that would be really healthy for the district, and the relationship between the district and the union. My glimmers of hope have really been about that. Am I disappointed to be where we are now? Yes.

PAT members think there are other issues that need to be bargained over, which they’ve described as “take-backs.” What do you think of those issues?

Those are the issues we have been dealing with at the table. We’re working our way through them pretty methodically, and I think a good labor agreement is one where everyone feels an equal amount of disappointment, where you don’t feel like you didn’t get everything you wanted, but everybody feels that. Part of what was hopeful to me a week ago was that it felt like we were at that spot, where everyone was letting go of some things they came in wanting. And where we felt like we had done some work improving what this contract is and how it serves kids.

How worried should everyone be about a strike?

That’s really a question for PAT, because they’re the ones that have the ability to strike.

What do you think of their statements saying the district would be pushing teachers to strike?

I believe we’ve been really clear that we’re looking for a negotiated settlement and that’s what we’ve been working towards. Me, personally, I’ve been at the table for sixteen long bargaining sessions since early December, really saying that what I’m committed to doing is getting to a negotiated settlement. I’ve had personal commitments saying this is what I’m really shooting for.

So what’s your message to parents at this point?

I thank them for their patience and their support for all the folks that are the table working a contract that benefits the young people of this city, the young students of this city. What we have on the table right now adds teachers, it adds instructional time, and it gives a fair compensation package that honors our teachers.